There have been a bevy of artificial intelligence (AI) tools invading the consumer marketplace over the past year, so it was inevitable that some of these tools would begin to seep into the business sector.Using one of the so-called “AI Girls” (Alexa, Cortana, Siri, or the androgynous Google Assistant) to track and record activities in a commercial time billing application seems like a natural fit, especially in the legal marketplace. Tali has jumped into that market with both feet.
Attorneys have long been used to dictating to a machine to produce memos, documents, and various other bits of information. Now that same capability has been extended to time billing entries, bypassing the ubiquitous Dictaphone and going straight into an Internet-based time capture utility.
Tali is the first app to “marry” the capabilities of the AI Girls with Cloud-based time tracking, and integrate that with selected web-based time billing applications, to create an efficient, simple-to-use workflow for attorneys to complete the arduous task of getting their time recorded for billing. The developers of Tali believe that the best implementations of technology should be largely invisible, and have used that vision to build their app. Tali is admirably invisible in that regard.
Tali is a voice-enabled time capture system that integrates – at present – with Clio, Rocket Matter, and Practice Panther. The service is subscription-based and 
includes a free Amazon Echo Dot with the subscription. With a “Dot on the Desk”, Alexa (Amazon’s AI Girl) can sit patiently awaiting a wake-up command to capture either after-the-fact billable time, or can work in real time to track time as it is being spent. A simple command such as “Alexa, log 45 minutes to the Jones case for a meeting with client regarding filing options” will create an entry in the Tali app, which can then be sent to Clio via a one-click synchronization to make the billing entry in Clio’s billing database (or any of the other apps with which Tali integrates).
Tali works equally well on the road. Using one of the voice-activated AI Girls, your smartphone can invoke Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Cortana to capture telephone call times, or any other time related activity, on the fly. All of those entries will then be stored in the Tali app, awaiting synchronization with billing.
The Tali app also supports an export capability – to CSV files – if your time tracking system is not one currently supported by one of Tali’s automatic synchronization routines. Most contemporary billing software supports importing of data via CSV files, with some minor editing typically required between the export and the subsequent import.
As artificial intelligence continues to flood the technology sector, we can expect to see more integrations with existing software tools routinely used to perform common administrative tasks. Voice-activated artificial intelligence is perhaps the most significant user interface innovation in the world of computer usage since the introduction of the mouse. Star Trek is not as far off as we first thought.
Thinking about a move to the Cloud? Crosspointe is gaining experience with a variety of Cloud-based law firm management apps, and can advise you on the best fit for your firm, whether just starting out or moving from an on-premise application. Give us a call at 877-357-0555, or email us at [email protected] to see how we can help with your transition to Cloud-based computing.
Jack Schaller has been active in the field of law office technology since 1989, and has worked with a variety of commercial accounting, legal billing, practice management, and document management software products during his twenty plus years in the software consulting field. During his tenure as a software consultant he has garnered many sales and service awards for his work with legal software products. Jack is a frequent presenter at legal conferences and seminars, and is a regular contributor to TechnoLawyer and other technology publications.